Dyslexia: Slow reading, speedy thinking

Ottawa’s Shaylyn Hewton, 13, is a nationally ranked swimmer and a member of the Greater Ottawa Kingfish Swim Club. She is also dyslexic.PAT McGRATH
/ THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

Thirteen-year-old Shaylyn Hewton is a nationally top ranked swimmer and a member of the Go Kingfish swim club. She is also dyslexic.
Shaylyn Hewton, 13, is a competitive swimmer. Superior physical ability can accompany dyslexia, as can superior musical and artistic ability.PAT McGRATH
/ THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

A British study has found that adults with learning disabilities are 10 times more likely than the general United Kingdom population to be blind or have...

The list is long and distinguished and includes Jamie Oliver, Tom Cruise, Richard Branson and Keira Knightley. All high achievers, all dyslexic. And just as dyslexia didn’t stop them from reaching the top of their field, Shaylyn Hewton, 13, says it won’t stop her. The Grade 8 student at St-Laurent Academy, a private school in Ottawa, is one of the top five backstroke swimmers in Canada in her age group and aspires to be on the Canadian team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“That’s definitely where I want to be,” says Shaylyn, who has travelled across the country for meets as a high-performance athlete with the Greater Ottawa Kingfish Swim Club.

“Every time I swim, it’s just an amazing feeling I have, and I just take out all my stress in the pool. If there’s a big test coming up, I just forget about that test and I swim through it. If something happens, I swim through it. I swim through the pain.”

Shaylyn’s talent doesn’t surprise Susan Barton, a California-based dyslexia expert, who will be in Ottawa on Oct. 28 to offer a free seminar on dyslexia.

Barton says superior physical ability can be one of the “gifts” of dyslexia as can superior musical and artistic ability, people skills and logic, among many others. Many of the adults who have used her system went to college on athletic scholarships.

“Most of the highest paid athletes, at least in the United States, are dyslexic, and more and more are becoming comfortable sharing that.”

In 1998, Barton, 57, left a 20-year career in the IT industry to help her nephew, who was 16 and still unable to read when his dyslexia was identified. She founded Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, an organization that educates teachers and parents about the condition and develops research-based solutions. Chief among them is a system that offers the instructor — whether a parent, tutor, teacher or other professional — the tools they need to help.

Barton says people hold many misconceptions about dyslexia, including the idea that people with dyslexia see things backwards, that they can’t read at all, and that it’s rare. In fact, about 15 per cent of the population has dyslexia although only five per cent are correctly diagnosed, says Barton. Dyslexics don’t have a visual problem, but an auditory processing problem, she says.

“They can’t hear the sounds within the words, clearly, cleanly, they can’t say them in sequence, they can’t count the sounds the words have, they can’t figure out if two words have the same sounds in the middle or the same sound at the end, through their ears alone.”

People with dyslexia have a larger right hemisphere in their brains than those of normal readers, says Barton, which also accounts for their strengths.

She says if adults know what to look for, dyslexia is easy to detect early on. If a child doesn’t have 10 to 12 words by 12 months, that’s a sign; if a child doesn’t have a clear preference for one hand or the other by age four, that’s a sign; if a child frequently mixes up the sequence of syllables — pasghetti, instead of spaghetti — that’s a sign.

Shaylyn displayed signs of a learning disability from early on. She was unable to hold a crayon at two or three years old, for example.

She was able to get early intervention for what was eventually diagnosed as severe dyslexia and can now read at a Grade 6 level, though she still struggles more with spelling.

People for Education, a parent advocacy organization, noted in its 2013 report on Ontario’s publicly funded schools that 17 per cent of elementary students and 23 per cent of secondary students received at least some special education assistance. In 2001, those numbers were 11 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.

But Barton says with hard work even adults whose dyslexia has never been diagnosed can acquire reading, writing and spelling skills.

“There truly is no reason why they have to be slow readers, embarrassed about their spelling and reading their whole life. That part we know how to fix,” she says, adding the oldest student she has ever worked with personally was 63. “But the earlier we pick it up, the better.”

Shaylyn says that while she’s not ashamed of her difficulties, she generally keeps quiet about them because of other people’s reactions. She says she has friends onFacebook or who text with her who comment on her spelling.

“I keep it secretive because some people take it differently,” saysShaylyn. “But my close friends know about it.”

Barton says there’s no one perfect method for helping every person with dyslexia, but many good ones, each with their own strengths. She will discuss the good methods and their applications during her Ottawa seminar, as well as the genetic link to dyslexia, symptoms in adults and warning signs in children among other topics.

Heather Desjardins, who is organizing the event, was a resource teacher at St-Laurent Academy until August, when she left to start The Open Door Educational Services. The Open Door offers services related to learning disabilities to educators, parents, and children and adults suspected of having or diagnosed with a learning disability.

Desjardins feels that she can help more people with this 400-person seminar than she could have done in a school setting or through her company alone.

“Teachers want nothing more than to help their students, but learning disabilities is an area that’s not very well covered in (teachers’ college),” says Desjardins, 34, who has been working with Shaylyn since Grade 4. “I want to reach the people that don’t know what to look for and don’t know what the signs are.”

Dyslexia signs through the ages

If a child has three or more of the following warning signs, encourage that child’s parents and teachers to learn more about dyslexia.

Preschool

delayed speech

mixing up the sounds and syllables in long words

chronic ear infections

severe reactions to childhood illnesses

constant confusion of left versus right

late establishing a dominant hand

difficulty learning to tie shoes

trouble memorizing their address, phone number, or the alphabet

can’t create words that rhyme

a close relative with dyslexia

Elementary school

dysgraphia (slow, non-automatic handwriting that is difficult to read)

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